Prostacyclin derivatives, including Treprostinil, Beraprost, Iloprost, and Epoprostenol, are useful pharmaceutical compounds possessing activities such as platelet aggregation inhibition, gastric secretion reduction, lesion inhibition, and bronchodilation. They are useful for preventing, controlling and treating a variety of diseases and pathological conditions.
Beraprost is a synthetic benzoprostacyclin analogue of natural prostacyclin that is currently under clinical trials for the treatment of pulmonary hypertension and vascular disease (excluding renal disease) in North America and Europe. Beraprost and its isomers have the following structure:

Beraprost and related benzoprostacyclin analogues are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,202,447 and Tetrahedron Lett. 31, 4493 (1990). Furthermore, as described in U.S. Pat. No. 7,345,181, several synthetic methods are known to produce benzoprostacyclin analogues. Methods of making Beraprost and related compounds are disclosed, for example, in US patent application publication no. 2012/0323025 and PCT publication WO2013/040068. The entire teaching of these documents are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety. The methods described in these patent documents however, do not describe a feasible production method for producing stereochemically pure Beraprost because, for example, the methods require the use of expensive reagents and tedious chromatographic purification techniques. Therefore, there is a need in the art for an economical, efficient and simplified method for preparing Beraprost and its synthetic intermediates, which can be scaled for commercial production.